Oct 6, 2011

Ciao!

Well, it has been a really crazy week,

but we just got back from CLIMBING A VOLCANO!!

So that is awesome.More on that momentarily.

And Slla Stebar and I celebrated our One Year Anniversary(okay, she was celebrating her one year on a mission and I pointed out that I met her her first day and so now it is officiallya holiday for the both of us!)

Okay, this week is crazy because at one point we hadTHREE baptismal dates,but then we discovered a few problems with some of the commandments and we are going to have to move some things around.

But my/our motto for the transfer(partially because Slla Stebar caught me saying in my sleep) i"Non ci sono problemi" There are no problems!No matter what happens.Or however you would eloquently translate that

The past two weeks Slla S has pointed out several times that my English is become Italianified. Like that last sentence. I'm struggling. But it is okay. Back to me talking in my sleep, I was explaining to someone that they could come to Relief Society"even if you are not a member of the Society."

Add to that, we have received a record number of "bidonnes" that is people who stand us up this week, because people just kept cancelling. One would cancel, we would set up another appointment and that person would cancel too! Over and over. We even double booked ourselves once on accident, but no worries, they both cancelled!!

And then, conference, the one thing you think you can count on, but what happens? We get to the church and it starts raining and we think, "Well that was lucky!" except for the fact that we were watching by sallelite and it kept cutting out! We thought "it'll come back for the prophet, it'll come back for the prophet!" Wrong.

Romeo laughed as I waved my arms about willing it to work, as if I was holding an antaena and when it cut out us and the three African men we were with sang hymns in the bad Italian that we speak until it would come on again, only to hear the crowd laugh at some wonderful Pres. Monson joke that we had missed. Awful. But we just downloaded them onto the mp3 player, along with all of Sunday afternoon session, because that was playing at 10pm and we missed it.

Conference was great though, wasn't it?? Pres. Utchdorf's talk to the Relief Society was SO wonderful and lovely and heart warming.God loves us. Punto. Period.

The other bad news was that WE BROKE THE CHURCH. Okay, not really, but I went to close the garage door that is our church entryway and it slammed really hard and the next day we couldn't open it. Problem. But once again bishop saved us and got it fixed.He has saved us a lot lately.

Mom! When you sent me that email about the man we met who didn't think he could change that he was too far gone, I couldn't remember who you were talking about, but then one night we were sitting in the park making phone calls and I scrolled through all the names and stopped on one and said, "johnny, be our miracle" because his phone is ALWAYS off. But he answered! And we went and saw him the next day! In his house with his girlfriend and it was really awesome.Step by step we will help him change his life.

Like the photos?

Guess who hasnt cut her hair

since the mtc...yeah,

out of sheer laziness.

We wore normal clothes because it was a "hike"

but it was easier than our walk from Romeo's to the church,

which we trekked with him to get to conference.

And of course as we were hiking the volcano

many a Mordor reference was made.

This mission is full of nerds.

Everyone but me had lots of lava dust in their shoes,

mine were squeeky clean.And my old comp Slla Lecates is in Catania!Reunion.

You know what we're going to do, right? We're going to live like we're telling the best story in the world.

-The Brothers Bloom

We will do things that surprise others, but in our hearts we knew we could do them. -Thomas Kelly

It may seem boring, but I think the boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most.

- Russell, Up

Love is what inspired our Heavenly Father to create our spirits; it is what led our Savior to the Garden of Gethsemane to make Himself a ransom for our sins. Love is the grand motive of the plan of salvation; it is the source of happiness, the ever-renewing spring of healing, the precious fountain of hope. - Dieter F. Utchdorf